All posts tagged: The Beatles

The V&A’s new photography centre will open on 12 October, with newly-acquired photographs by Linda McCartney, a newly-commissioned series by Thomas Ruff, and an inaugural display tracing the history of photography through the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) collection. The new facility will more than double the V&A’s current photography exhibition space, and follows the transfer of over 270,000 photographs, 26,000 publications and 6000 pieces of equipment from the RPS collection formerly held in the National Media Museum in Bradford – a controversial transfer, described at the time as “an appalling act of cultural vandalism” by Simon Cooke, the leader of the Conservative opposition on Bradford council. Tristram Hunt, director of the V&A, said that the transfer had “provided the catalyst for this dramatic reimagining of photography at the V&A” however, and that the new centre will “seamlessly span the entire history of photography….from daguerreotype to digital”. He added that the V&A is particularly well-placed to tell this story given its long engagement with photography – it was one of the first museums to put together a photographic exhibition, partly because its founder, Henry Cole, was a keen amateur photographer.

“The Beatles were inspired by different things on that album: it was created out of everyday things and everyday notions, even though people view it as a psychedelic masterpiece,” says Dean Chalkley ahead of a new exhibition launching in Shoreditch this week. His collection, Reverberation, takes its inspiration from Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, 50 years on from its release. Just like the original album, Reverberation is set to take people on a treasure hunt to find hidden meanings out of everyday realities.